Thank you for your kind words, Dreamkilled! So glad you liked my little game. :)
Yes, the ghost was redrawn to be more frightening at some point: if you watch the trailer, you'll notice that the original one was completely different.
As you say, I had fun putting quite a bunch of details in such a short experience (and I'm trying to do the same in the second project I'm currently working on, yet on a different scale... But that's another story).
To answer your questions:
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Yes, there is a way to stop the ritual. Even if it's not explained, but only suggested, in that occasion you have the chance to perform a special melee attack; you should wait for the right moment, though.
After that, you will still have to choose whether to go up or down the stairs, but you will have access to the fourth ending.
The four endings are in fact:
- going down the well;
- going down the well with the four alien coins;
- wake up (stairs up from the ritual chamber);
- going down the well after defeating your evil self.
As regard to the sentence in the main menu... Well, it's deliberately ambiguous and left to your interpretation! :D